While Menno was out on the street today he was approached randomly by two Chinese people wanting to practice their English. This has happened to us before, as a scam that leads to being invited into a shop to order tea that turns out to be hundreds of dollars. But this time the people were genuine, and when Menno told them that he played in a Canadian rock band called Hollerado, one of them started singing our Chinese song back to him! Her name was “Alice Danger” while her friend’s name was Tyle. This is worth mentioning – in China, everyone is given an English nick-name that’s picked by you and/or your friends through some game working off the characters that spell your name. This was the case with Jack Black from the other night, our tour manager Ciga, and definitely her friend Satan! We’ve also met people who call themselves by other names, like Eight, Purple, Baby, The Sea, Keith, Wa Wa, the list goes on! We all think it would be cool to pick nick names for ourselves like that but they’d probably have to be Chinese. So far all I know how to say in Chinese is to count from one to ten (which makes it possible to count from one to a hundred if you know what order to put the numbers in), and the words for beer, vegetables, thank-you, sorry, and a few swear words.
Last night at dinner there was a big, big sign at the restaurant advertising “Dog Meat” and today I saw a butcher weighing out what was unquestionably a dog carcass in his shop, preparing it for sale. There’s no doubt that they eat it here. My love for dogs makes it tough for me to think about, but it makes sense, there being so many mouths to feed in this country. It’s just necessary to make edible everything that’s available. For every mammoth commercial center we come across, are an equal number of neighborhoods that are either mired in poverty or are outright trashed, especially in the suburbs that we see on the train going or coming from cities. It’s easy to let the lights and size of the massive buildings in every downtown distract you from it, but it’s clear that not everyone in this country is benefiting from China’s throttled economic growth.
On a lighter note, we are about to go to 4698 to watch the opening band and hang out with Immaculate Machine before we each play our sets. I’ve never seen them, so I’m excited for that! I asked my girlfriend back home about them and she got really excited, stopping just short of admitting she likes them more than my band! I’m just looking forward to sharing the stage with a Canadian band, so far from home. Rest assured we’ll all be complaining about the lack of good, hearty Canadian beer (the beer here is only 3%.)

We left Wu Han the next morning, by train. This time there was a mix-up with the tickets, so we had to exchange them at the last minute and as a result nobody was on the same car, making it tricky to make sure we all got off at our stop in Changsha. For me, it took a mixture of paying attention to the time, because the ride was supposed to be a little under three hours, and listening as closely as I could to make out the rough English translations announcing the stops. It was a huge train – we were spread out over about twenty cars, and luckily everyone was out of the train at the right stop before it pulled away. It would not be fun to get stuck in some city in China alone, not speaking any mandarin, waiting to be rescued by the band when they come through China again on tour with a new guitar player!
Changsha is famous for its good food. So, within half an hour of checking into our hotel, a trusted Hanting Express we set in search of dinner. The city, like most we’ve been to, is huge. Only I don’t think they’re as used to seeing westerners here. Everywhere we go people watch us and mutter something that sounds like “Yahweh”, which according to our tour manager is a non-derogatory term for foreigners. Some things are baffling, like the huge banner on the shopping centre that says, “French Christmas.” Why??! Nearby there’s a Chinese Santa, saying “thank-you, thank-you,” over and over as people pass by him.
On our way home from dinner last night we ran into Immaculate Machine, who’s also in the middle of a Chinese tour. Our tour is basically a reverse of theirs, ending in Hong Kong, while they started there and will finish in Beijing. Last night we stayed up playing dice with them, something they picked up while in China, and it was really great to meet a group so far from home that we have so much in common with. Strange that it took countless thousands of miles for two Canadian bands to meet for the first time. Tonight we are playing with them at a cool rock bar called 4698.

Hello, this is Menno Again.
Yeah, Nick was right about the diarrhea….to make matters worse we were out of toilet paper in our room, so i had to ask the hotel maid for more. I tried to explain what i wanted but she did not understand, so i resorted to the obvious gesture. The maid and her friend erupted in giggles but at least i got my toilet paper.
The flight to Wuhan was hell. We were in a pretty big plane, a Boeing 737. It was packed and bumpy and a guy near us was ignoring the no smoking signs, something you would never get away with in North America.
Wuhan at night looks like Las Vegas but with more weird lights. There was even a neon railing along the highway that changed colours as we drove like something straight out of the rainbow level in Mario Kart. If only the driving was as calm as it is in Mario Kart.
I was exhausted after the flight so i was elated to discover that there was a Chinese massage right next to the hotel. For 9 dollars Canadian, i got an hour with a master of massage. He pounded my back with his fists and twisted my toes, and pressed acupressure points that made me almost pee my pants. When i left i felt like i was walking on air. I can’t wait to do it again!
Today i went to use an ATM to take out some Chinese money (called RMBs, one Canadian dollar gets you a bit more than 5 RMBs). The ATM took my card and did not give it back. The same thing happened on our last trip to China. The disconcerting thing is that, just before the bank machine crashed, the screen went into windows 98. HA! Really. I guess i will be borrowing money from the rest of the guys for the rest of the trip.
Nick again:
The show in Wuhan was fun. We played with two great rock bands, and the second one covered Ted Nugent’s “Cat Scratch Fever”! We had played the same club on our last tour in China and there was nobody there. This time there were sixty people – not bad! After the show a guy that called himself Jack Black took us to a bar that he owned called Wuhan Prison, where we spent the rest of the night. Attached to the bar was a really cool used clothing shop that Jack Black also ran, and three of us conspired and bought Jake a jean vest like the one Gung Ho wears in G.I Joe.

Today we had lunch with Archie, the man who owns and runs Split Works. He has a lot of great stories about bands reaching out to him to help them organize a tour in China. He told us a story about how his friend was a journalist who went to cover an uprising in in Western China. The government shut off all Internet in the province. They also made it impossible to make a telephone call to outside the province. Even the guy’s cell phone would not work. Along those lines, we are actually having a lot of trouble getting this blog, and especially pictures and videos, up on the Internet. There are a lot of sites that are blocked from access here, like YouTube, Facebook, Yousendit, and even Exclaim! Regardless, it means that every time we post, we have to send the material to someone in Canada and get them to post it! Video and pictures are even harder, and we haven’t figured out how to send a big video file without using our trusted Yousendit.

Nick:
It was a short bullet train ride from Wu Shi to Shanghai in the early afternoon. The train station was packed, and when the boarding begins, you feel swept up in a river, carrying you a long, long way before you even find your train, let alone your seat. The trains make so many stops and carry so many people that it doesn’t have time to wait for everyone to be seated before getting going, and it was tough fighting the wobble of the train to stow our gear and sit down.
On the ride we saw lots of countryside, lots of factories and more Simpsons-style power plants. It felt like no time before we reached Shanghai, where we all climbed aboard a van that took off into the mess of Shanghai traffic. We avoided a number of near-collisions while we took in sights of the city. Shanghai must be the city in the world with the most buildings that look like UFOs. Everywhere you look you can spot buildings that are disk-shaped, spherical, or look like rockets ships, and they all look capable of space travel. The city is just downright modern and exciting!
The bar we played at was called Yuyintang, and it was by far the best equipped bar we had come across on the tour so far, in terms of backline and PA. On the way back from soundcheck we caught three dogs in the act of humping each other. One big dog was being humped by a medium-sized dog and the medium-sized dog was being humped by a little curly-haired dog wearing a red leather jacket. We all stopped in our tracks and cracked up, laughing with the dogs’ owners at the hilarious sight. Good to know that people from halfway around the world still get a laugh out of a good old-fashioned dog humping!
The crowd at the show that night was more than half made up of white folks, ex-pats from the USA, France, Canada and elsewhere. We hadn’t seen that kind of mix in the audience up to that point in the tour, and we don’t really expect to for the rest of the trip. Also, it was our manager Bix’s first night on the tour – he arrived just in time for our sound-check – and it was also his birthday! For a gift we gave him a stamp we had made in Beijing with the Royal Mountain Records logo on it. We also bought him a cake that was basically a big slab of the best fudge/nut brownie in the world and we ate it after a great show. We also celebrated with plenty of Hollerado shots, made by mixing vodka and baileys. We ended the night in the lobby of our hotel, and were surprised when the staff told us we couldn’t buy any whiskey from the bar. We were pretty mad, and grabbed a bottle of Jameson when the bartender was gone for a minute, but the joke was on us because when Menno took a sip he was disgusted to find out it was just Chinese tap water! Instead of a swig of whisky he got diarrhea…

Menno here again. Crazy thing Happened this morning.
We want to say sorry for not getting this blog up on a regular basis. Turns out that access to Exclaim.ca is blocked from anywhere in China. The same is true of YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. This morning, in the hotel lobby, i tried to access a bunch of these sites. When you log in to the computer you have to swipe your room key, so they know what room is using the computer. Eventually the computer froze while i tried to get on Facebook. An icon came up on the screen that depicted an eyeball and a big red do not enter sign. The lady sitting beside me started telling me something in Chinese, but i had no idea what she was saying and i went up to my room. About an hour later i was in the shower and i heard a banging on my door. I yelled for the cleaning lady to go away, i was in the shower, but the banging persisted accompanied by loud shouting in Chinese. I went to the door wrapped only in a towel and there were three menacing looking police yelling at me in Chinese. It was kind of intense. They came into the room and looked around, still shouting. I figured they wanted ID, so i started looking for my passport. As i bent down to get it from my jacket pocket on the floor, my towel slipped off. I caught it quickly but the CHinese police still saw a bit of my butt. I think they thought it was funny cause when i turned back around one of them was smiling a bit. I handed them my passport and they looked through it. They examined my Visa and then seemed happy, said “thank you” in Chinese and left. I’m not sure if the event i just described was directly related to the incident on the computer this morning, but i do know that none of the other guys had a visit from the police.

Here is a contest. Anyone who email us with the contact info for a fireworks factory somewhere near a city we are going to will be entered in a draw to win an Eastwood Guitar. If you can get in touch with them and see if a visit is possible your name will be entered 30 times. email us at holleradoland@hollerado.com with your findings. Happy Googling!

Hey this is Nick checking in, I’m Gonna tell you a bit about Wuxi.
Today was a long day of bad smells and big stares on the nine-hour train from Qingdao to Wu Shi. We were the only foreigners on it, and to kill the time we took pictures, ate noodles, told jokes and complained about the length of the trip or the terrible stink that erupted whenever a bathroom door was open. It was even worse when we spilled a drink and they insisted on cleaning it up, with a mop they used to clean the bathroom! It left a smell that we luckily only had to live with for two of the long hours. To the bathroom’s credit though, it did have throne-style toilets, which is way easier to use than the holes in the ground in most bathrooms.
From the train station in Wu Shi we walked fifteen minutes with all our bags to this Jazz club. On the way we crossed a canal that reminded me of the Rideau Canal so much, except for the fact that it was murky and black, horrific. The club seemed classy and tame at first, but turned out to be full of people thirsty for a show. They were just exploding with energy, some seemed out of control with aggressive over-enjoyment, moshing even when we played Fake Drugs. We came quickly back to the hotel by rides given to us from guys in the first band, who played newly-learned covers of sweet Jane and Johnny B. Goode.

First Domestic Airline Flight. Holy fuck. i had almost forgot. North American pilots have a way of flying that sheilds you from the physical forces that are occuring. Chinese pilots have more of a crop duster attitude. Lets get this plane in the air as quick as possible, even if it means taking off at the same angle as the space shuttle and when its time for the landing approach, god help you if you made the mistake of eating the black boiled egg and white gruel that they served you, because you will be throwing it up.
We landed in Qingdao and our touring party gave the pilot a hearty standing ovation. Everyone else on the plane seemed completely unphazed by what had just happened. As we deplaned i made i contact with the pilot. I smiled and politely said “you are a crazy motherfucker”. I think he knew exactly what i meant cause he gave me a sly grin and a cowboy thumbs up.
Our accomadations that night were maybe the coolest ever. We stayed in a youth hostel on the top of a mountain that was a originally an observatory, built in the early 1900s. If you are taking a trip to China, Qingdao is an essential stop. It is located on the ocean and is also the home of the world famous Tsingtao Brewery. You must stay in the Qingdao Observatory hostel. This is the website; www.hostelqingdao.com The very top still has the telescope, but it is also a bar and an amazing patio overlooking the city and the ocean. They also have a full menu of western style breakfast! we had french toast! Each order is cooked individually using a single hot plate in a kitchen the size of an average broom closet.
The first night in Qingdao we met up with the band the Dama Lamas, our hosts and owners of the venue we were playing called RedStar. They took us too a street that is literally translated as Beer St. We went to a seafood restaurant where we proceeded to eat one of the most incredible meals i have ever tasted. Spicy clams, ginger fried crab, grilled squid, spicy eggplant and assorted exotic creatures from the ocean that i have never even seen before on the discovery channel. It was all washed down with unpasteurized beer, made that day at the brewery across the road.  The bill came out to about 7$ Canadian per person. As we were leaving we ordered some beer to go. It arrived in a plastic bag. Beer in a bag.
The guys in the band DamaLlama told us the craziest story about a gig they played as part of a big variety show in a city that was so new it had no residents. They played to an audience that was bused in from nearby cities, so it could watch the show and learn about the new city and how they could move there. Some members of the audience even won prizes like microwaves and other appliances that they could fill their new home with. It’s unbelievable how fast this country is able to grow.
The show the next night was ridiculous. The venue was packed with people of all ages. Sweaty, loud, a dude named seabass, a crew of sailors from iceland and and a hundred chinese kids eager to embrace a new found excitement of rock and roll. We were amzed at how they seemed to sponatneously invent new ways to move and shake as we played our set. Our hosts bought five kegs. Eack keg cost $9 dollars canadian. A full keg!!!!! what? By the time the kegs were empty we had made a whole bunch of new friends, had a giant singalong to Neil Young, learned a bit more Mandarin and had been invited to play a girls wedding in slovenia (when she finds a husband).

We woke up early so we could get to the train station and catch the train to Tianjin. The train station was cavernous and modern, and i was especially looking forward to my first ride on a bullet train. Pressed for time, we resorted to one of the worst parts of tour no matter where you are in the world; fast food. Turns out that Chinese McDonalds is eqully as disgusting as Canadian McDonalds.
The bullet train made a blur of the factories and rice paddies as we left Beijing. We hit a top speed of 350 km/hour as the train seemed to glide over the countryside as if it were ice.  Turns out that there was also a bar on the train but travelling at that speed, we only had time for one Tsingtao before we pulled into the Tianjin train station.
The show that night was at an underground rock bar called NIC. In a city of several million people, it is one of three places that has live music, and the only one that houses rock and roll. After soundcheck and powernaps on the couches in the venue, we went to dinner at Goody House, the Chinese equivalent of Denny’s. This was revolting, but if you go to China, you really have to try it. Boiled Chicken feet anyone? Maybe some Doggie dumplings?
The show was fun. The crowd was small but enthusiastic. For a Wednesday night in a city we have never visited, 11 thousand km from Manotick, it was pretty cool to have 40 people come out to see us play. A bunch of people who didn’t speak any English were shouting for us to play Fake Drugs. Thats one reason why the internet is rad.
After the show the crowd cleared out. We spoke to the club owner, a guy named Song, who is a true pioneer of Chinese Rock and Roll. The night ended with an impromptu jam session with our friend and cameraman Aaron Miller leading us through a few rowdy Black Lips covers.
The next morning Dean and Jake went to have pizza for breakfast. One of the options on the menu was “Chihuahua Fiesta”. Seriously! They opted for “Hot Choice”.
There were some crazy aerobics happening in the park outside our hotel that morning. There were a ton of people in a tight crowd holding racquets, spinning in unison while balancing a ball, sometimes tossing it and catching it, with their racquets. The craziest thing was, they were all old enough to be grandparents, most of them women. It’s hard to imagine ever having the coordination to get any good at what they were doing.

The next day in the streets we caught a couple guys getting a pile of bricks from the ground to the roof, one of them on the ground, heaving them up to the other one, one at a time. That’s one way to do it, and it looked tiring for the guy on the ground, I wonder if they switch?
The weather was cold, just like Canada in November but with lower skylines. The huge skyscrapers were revealed when we went to D-22 though, like one with a flame-shaped upper twenty floors and a massive hotel shaped on one side like a piece of pie . It was pretty surprising to hear that the cab to the venue would take an hour, but that’s just how big the city is. D-22 is great is a really cool venue, owned by an American guy who used to work on Wall, st but then said fuck it and moved to Bejing to open a punk rock club. His name is Michael and he is totally awesome and every band should play at D-22 if they are in Beijing. ( www.myspace.com/d22beijing ) We played with a band called Candy Monster and met a guy from Osgoode, Ontario ( a town 10 minutes from Manotick). Later that night we went to a bar that served us cocktails called Barbaras, which were mocha-coloured